Sunday cHeck-iN...

My break from blogging at the end of last week was not out of a sense of discouragement, or out of a feeling of frustration or being overwhelmed with work and its dramas, but rather was just simply a result of life being lived and my becoming engaged with moments as they existed...Actually, Thursday and Friday (and Wednesday) went incredibly well, even Sixth Grade in which we did a hula hoop circle step-through timed race (which they were SO into) and played JAILBREAK (with mixed-gender teams!) at the volleyball courts. My most triumphant feat was completing a First Grade lesson that felt truly successful and relatively smooth! With the help of an assistant to the lower grades teachers who dealt with the disciplinary problems, I was able to 1) get the kids to walk out of the classroom quietly, two by two 2) have them form two concentric circle with these lines (a tricky thing!) and 3) get them into two parallel lines again to play a game of OVER-UNDER passing with a ball (they just learned how to sew so I and the assistant, an awesome, bouncy guy whom the children all call "Mr. Brad", thought it was appropriate); they even got a little competitive, seeing which line could do this sequence correctly in the shortest amount of time. They were over the moon about this simple exercise-- which again reinforced for me the importance of simplicity itself at this age-- simplicity and structure...Tomorrow, I have them again, and I think I will be taking them on a trip: we'll be on a long ship, with oar(wo)men in pairs rowing and crash-land on a deserted island...Who knows what we might find there! Well, Ms. Nelson does (we'll encounter a hungry MR.WOLF (or perhaps a tiger or something more exotic) and play some rounds of this fun "Tag" variation to get them RUNNING and pooped out. :) I LOVELOVELOVE being able to craft an imaginative narrative around the activities we do in these younger grades-- it's like story-telling and they just eat it up...Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

The Eighth Grade is fun in its own way, on the other end of the spectrum-- and I also see them tomorrow. I've been trying to do some basic CrossFit kids stuff with them and they're fairly receptive-- at least, they do it and I've heard from parents that the students are excited about the possibilities offered by my program. We ran a mile on Friday as an assessment tool for me to see where they are-- some fast ones in the bunch! But everyone finished-- in spite of the glaring noon-time heat and the lack of shade in the desert-like bluffs in front of the school. They were great sports. Tomorrow, I think we'll do some functional fitness stuff for half the period and then maybe reward ourselves with a game of CAPTURE THE FLAG. [I cannot wait for my pinnies to come in! This will make these games so much easier to manage!]

Fifth Grade on Friday was a trip, as usual...Played SPUD, which they loved, and then variations of tag: one-footed hopping tag first and then "All-Fours Tag" (my own creation-- so funny to watch); they were wiped out afterwards. I'm thinking German Dodgeball for this group soon...This game was a favorite of my Waldorf class-- Mr. Heyder taught it to us, telling us only the German name, which I won't even pretend to spell here. But even I, someone who much preferred the running and hiding and strategy games to those involving balls of any kind, LOVED this one! It's fast-paced and involved everyone, drawing on all kinds of skill.

And overall, how is Greta feeling about this new position? Well. I must say that it is taking some getting used to-- the flexibility and the freedom, the new environment and the new kids, my new "uniform" a.k.a. shorts and tees and sneakers as opposed to more "teacherly" garb-- all of it. I feel like I am missing something, like this is too good to be true and that I'm going to find out that I'm doing something profoundly wrong, like missing half of my week's classes or something...I'm holding my breath but the bubble hasn't burst yet. I guess I really AM living the dream, and it IS dreamy, all besides getting stuck in California traffic when I leave school too late in the afternoon. So I'm figuring out how to live this schedule most fully...And I'm getting there. But now, to sleep. Big day-- four classes: bang bang bang bang (back to back to back to back) all out in the sun tomorrow. It could be worse ;)